Work Text:
Chloe POV:
It was all she could do but to keep from hyperventilating. This was all happening much too quickly and now Charlie was missing, demons had come from hell to try to take Lucifer back to hell and Kinley’s vial was missing.
“Kinley’s vial….you kept that?” The vial, to incapacitate Lucifer. Demons have it.
“Well I didn’t think it was something I could just toss down the drain. I was going to chuck it out with our spent batteries.” Lucifer confirmed, pouring himself a drink.
I tried to control the chaos racing through my brain, and the end result was that it was thinking much more slowly than usual.
“W-what would they want with the vial?”
Prophecy. Hell on Earth. Return Satan to Hell. . I shook my head as if to rid myself of the pattern, fearing that if I completed the thoughts it would come to fruition. Had it really been so little time ago that I was actively trying to bring this plan to fruition.
’You idiot! This is all your fault.’ my inner voice blamed me. I had no arguments to counter it. If it wasn’t for me, Father Kinley never would have known…never had it confirmed. When I met him he only suspected.
The logical detective in me tried to use reason to see that he would have eventually tried to come for Lucifer, but because of me, he saw a chance, because he learned that I made Lucifer vulnerable.
I was pulled out of my thoughts by Lucifer coming to a sudden and terrifying epiphany.
“They’re not trying to get back at me.” He realized, eyes wide. “They’re trying to replace me.”
The idea that it wouldn’t be Lucifer returning to hell seemed to release the paralytic that had been holding me in place and I walked closer to him.
“How could they possibly do that?” Unsure if I felt more fear or relief from this. Who would they replace him with?
“Hell was built so that no demon could take control of the throne, only a celestial could rule; an angel, but…”
Understanding flooded into my mind just as Lucifer spoke the words, and I cursed myself for ever feeling even a twinge of relief.
“..I suppose half an angel would do.”
Charlie.
Linda’s Charlie.
In hell. To rule. For eternity.
No.
It was at that moment that Eve ran in, out of breath and radiating guilt. She explained what had happened with Kinley and the demon and the plan, the all too familiar plan to return Lucifer to hell.
All of my guilt and rage toward myself suddenly exploded onto her.
“Eve, how could you do this? How could you be so selfish! Naive??”
Just as I had been.
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Lucifer POV
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I couldn’t believe this. In all of eternity there had been two women that I actually felt more for than just a few nights' fun in the sack, and somehow it drove both of them to try to thrust me back into hell.
Clearly, I was NOT relationship material.
“Eve, how could you do this? How could you be so selfish! Naive??” Chloe was scolding her, my eyes darted to her, sensing hypocrisy.
’You’re not exactly one to talk, though are you?’ I questioned internally, but this was not the time. My nephew was in danger.
“Where’s the baby now, Eve?” I asked, trying to keep us all focused. Eve wasn’t really any further help, as my rebellious demons had taken advantage of her human ability to be rendered unconscious and didn’t leave her with much. There were moments of silence as we tried to piece together the information we did know to try to figure it out. I heard the detective going into her mental murder board to find a solution.
“Okay, if they took the vial, then they’re probably planning on performing the same ceremony…..”
That she was helping Kinley to perform on me.
“So, come on, tell us, Detective, once you’d served up this holy, anointed sedative, where was this ceremony to take place, back when you wanted me in Hell?” I asked, more accusation in my tone than I had intended, but if the shoe fit..at least if some good came of this then all of the pain of the dual betrayals these two had put me through might not be entirely in vain.
I tried to ignore the clinch of guilt that panged my heart as the detective’s face fell, marred by guilt and sadness.
“Well, as you know, I didn’t go through with it.” She defended, and the tiniest fleck of irritation colored her eyes. It fettered me that this gave me some relief. Hurt as I was, I still didn’t like the idea of the detective harboring guilt for any length of time. Though part of me insisted that she deserved it. “I know he mentioned a Church.”
Oh good, that was helpful a Church. Could you be any less specific?
“A Church?” I voiced, impatience coloring my tone as I worried for the fate of my innocent nephew being forced to rule over hell, as I was. “Great. There’s what, only 2, 3 thousand of those in LA?”
We finally managed to ascertain that the cursed place of worship we needed was the Mayan, and the detective and I set off, leaving Eve in my penthouse where she would hopefully not cause any further trouble.
I had to get to them in time. I couldn’t let Charlie suffer my fate.
“Anything I need to know about fighting demons?” She was asking, and though I appeased her request for information, this time I was rather insistent that she not join.
“Demons or no demons, there’s no way I’m not helping.” She argued. I practically rolled my eyes in impatience.
“Need I remind you, detective, it’s actually lesshelpful if you’re there?” I sighed in retort. “You make me vulnerable, remember?” I still couldn’t figure that one out. Cain had a theory that it was Chloe’s love that removed his mark, and made me vulnerable. But the detective clearly had no love for me, and it was Cain’s single solitary act of putting someone else first for once in his long overdrawn life that removed his mark, not her love for him.
“But I don’t.”
Eve. Now there was someone that did love me…in an obsessive limerence way…and certainly did not make me vulnerable. So it couldn't be that.
“You’re supposed to be at the penthouse.”
“Right, but I needed to apologize for….all of it. And everything I put you through.” Did anyone remember that we were on a bit of a time crunch here? “But I realized, you’re not this perfect guy I’ve made you out to be.”
Try wrapping your brain around that one. I wasn’t sure which was the more bizarre, that she once thought the devil was perfect, or that she thought insulting him was a way of saying sorry.
“Well, you suck at apologies.”
“What I mean is, I thought I wanted you but really I’ve been missing the person I was when I was with you.”
Yes well, people using me for their own selfish desires was at least something I was familiar with.
“Well, I hope you find what you want, Eve, but I really wish you’d had this epiphany before you let demons loose on Los Angeles.”
“You and me both.” She agreed, and then insisted that she would go in to help make amends, no matter what.
Finally, Amenadiel and Maze arrived and the 4 of us entered to reclaim Charlie before hell claimed him, leaving the detective far enough outside that the pesky vulnerability she caused wouldn’t be an issue.
We entered just in time as the idiot demon, Dromos, was just about to feed a bottle of the celestial roofie milk to the only half-angel/half-human baby in existence.
“Dromos!” I called out for his attention. “Haven’t you heard, breast is best?” Rather than the quiver of fear that should have taken hold of the demons standing on the alter at what was an obvious threat, Dromos only laughed and I twitched in concern over this impossibility.
“Now you see, the thing is, I don’t take orders from you anymore.” My head tilted slightly as my eyes stayed fixed, unblinking, on the scene before me, intent on not allowing the fear and doubt that was in my mind show anywhere on my face. “Not since the whole, abdication thing…”
He rambled on about his plans to make my tiny nephew into the new King of Hell, kidnapping and raising him to rule in favor of the demons, rather than as it was meant to be. I only barely listened as I realized the true gravity of what all of this meant. Before, I was only vacationing, but insisting that I would never return to hell, sharing that I had no interest in what on there and no longer intended on serving as king there had resulted in a much bigger problem than I had anticipated.
The demons no longer felt compelled to bend to my will.
Bloody hell, the prophecy was true. Hell on Earth indeed.
“Give me my SON!” Amenadiel bellowed, with a force of demand that would have shook them to their core, had he been at his full glory. Clearly, it would come to a fight, and for that we were prepared.
We were outnumbered, but not at all overpowered. It only took a few steps and suffering a couple of insults from Dromos about having gone soft before I’d been able to wrestle Charlie out of his arms, handing him to Eve and urging her to run and get him someplace safe.
Even less time after that until Dromos was the only one left.
“Time to go home.” I instructed again. The demon simply donned a smug smile.
“Make me.” He taunted. I actually smiled. At some point, it had become quite satisfying to be able to take my aggression out on these idiot hellspawn that thought they could overpower two archangels and hell's best torturer.
“Very well.” I leered, walking toward him with a sneer while Amenadiel and Mazikeen flanked him on either side. I caught the blade that Maze tossed to me as I approached and lit hellfire into my eyes, holding it against his throat.
“Oh, look who’s here.” He said, as if simply noticing a detail in the aesthetic, and his eyes flicked behind me.
Three pairs of celestial eyes turned to see the appearance of the detective within the building.
“Shit.” Maze had voiced my thought at the same moment that it fed into my mind. I extinguished the fire from my eyes in an instant, worried of how she’d react if she saw it.
‘Of all the bloody times for her to show up…’ I thought, wanting to take care of the issue at hand without further damage to any of the humans I cared for, especially her.
“Detective! What are you doing?” I specifically told her to stay away from here.
“I’m sorry, I know.” She was panting - did she run here? “It sounded like everything was okay. Just making sure you’re all right. Are you alright?” She was asking. I swear almost none of what this woman has done since she saw my devil face has made any sort of sense. Lately she seemed to be flopping back and forth between wanting to exorcise me, to being terrified, to wanting to make sure if I was okay.
“You need to leave, Detective.” I implored.
“I know..” She said, catching her breath. “I make you vulnerable.” Is that what she thought I meant?
“No, that’s not it.” I explained. “I don’t want you to see me like this. I know it scares you.” ’And makes you hate me. I don’t want you to hate me again, to run…again.’
“No, that’s…That’s what I was trying to tell you. I’m not…I’m not afraid of you anymore.”
“You’re not?” I doubted. If not for fear, then why has she been…”Then why have you been so worried? About my face about, all of it coming back?” She’d been checking up on me all day, insisting that I make sure that I take time off to rest, to make sure none of that grotesque monster of a face returned, even keeping me away from reminders and off of cases.
“I wasn’t afraid of you.” She insisted, shaking her head. Confusion colored my thoughts. I’m no Michael, but even I can spot that much fear. “I was afraid of losing you.” Ok now I was just stunned. “That all this will take over, you’ll forget about this place and…that you’d forget about me.”
‘What the fu-?’
“Lucifer….I-”
The detectives words were cut off as abruptly as my thoughts when the sound of a hoard of figures echoed through the room, moving quickly, and I looked up to see recognizable demons in the eyes of freshly corpsed humans. Lots of them.
Shit.
“It’s amazing how many demon souls you can source from a little church confessional.” Dromos was laughing.
Bloody hell, was everyone here? They surrounded us in droves, grabbing hold of the detective and pulling her away, surrounding Dromos and striving to free him from the grasp of my brother and Maze. This was absolute chaos. I looked around the room, panicked as I realized there was really only one way out of this. The prophecy could not come to pass. Hell could not come to Earth, I now cared about far too many people here. The one before me chief among them.
Well, we would have to put the detective’s words to the test.
I stilled myself in preparation as I turned, calling forth every part of the monstrous side of me to envelope my appearance and unfurled my wings, demonic in their appearance as I resignedly took back my throne.
“Enough!” I bellowed into the room of malignant zombie-fiends, the meaning behind my words calling them into subjugation and they froze and silenced themselves, eyes locked on me, awaiting instruction.
“Now bow down, to your king.” I commanded, and it was so. “You do not belong here! Go home!” Hundreds of undead bodies collapsed to the ground as their inhabitants released them, returning to the hell where they were spawn.
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Chloe POV
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Holy Shit.
Holy. Fucking. Shit.
That was the devil. Full in his glory, King of Hell, commander of all hell’s demons: Lucifer.
My Lucifer.
It was hard to believe that the same arrogant, charming, impulsive, childlike, frivolous Lucifer that I knew was now standing before me like a commanding general that none would dare defy.
I had seen this skin before, covering his body like the 3rd degree burns that they probably were, but at that time its appearance made him scared, panicked and totally out of control.
This was totally different.
I gaped up at him where he stood, chest heaving as he looked around the room as if daring one of his subjects to return into the corpses that they had possessed, unable to contain the feeling that washed over me, and entirely unsure of how to cope with it: arousal. It certainly didn’t help when he returned to his human flesh and I was given a clear view of his lean build, chiseled abs, and smooth skin.
He looked over at me, as if trying to gauge my reaction to what I had seen, and I did my best to pick my jaw up from off of the ground and seal it shut against my top lip. I tried not to overthink the bordering on erotic thoughts that were running through my mind as I felt one side of my lips curl up into an approving smile, maybe of admiration. It was slight, but I saw his head tilt and his chin rise up slightly as he took in my expression and he nodded at me.
It was over.
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Lucifer POV
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Then, there were the bodies to deal with. There was a bit of a grey area, as the remaining celestials on the scene worked to convince the LAPD detective that even though the corpses had in fact been human victims, their murderers had been demons, who could simply not be punished for their crimes on Earth, and would be one hell of a mess trying to sort through in a bureaucratic way.
Even the detective could see the reason in that, and though she did want to help, I insisted that she not. She was, after all a detective with the LAPD, and for all intents and purposes, we were about to destroy and dispose of evidence linked to hundreds of crimes that we were essentially covering up. She could not be anywhere near it.
We agreed that we would let her know once it was over.
Gathering up the total body count, it was evident that burning would be the most efficient method here, but they’d need to create a blaze hot enough to burn them to ash, without drawing attention.
It was actually a relatively ridiculous idea, potentially suggested because Mazikeen had no wings and couldn’t fly the things there herself, but there was a relatively active volcano cluster in Imperial County. It wasn’t likely to erupt anytime soon, but it still had lava, so it seemed the best bet.
When it was all said and done, I needed a shower. The flight back had given me ample time and solitude to think about the situation.
’When the devil walks the Earth and finds his first love, evil shall be released.’
The words of the prophecy settled into my mind and I thought about the life that I’d been building on Earth, the life I loved, and the greater responsibility that I could no longer avoid.
I had to protect them. None of them seemed to realize just how great a danger they’d been in today, and who knew when the demons might try again if they weren’t kept underfoot.
I took my time in the shower, feeling the weight of my decision wash over me with the warm water. Dad knows when I would have something so simple as a warm shower like this again. I’d made my penthouse with every leisure that simply did not exist in hell. It was finally time to come out of the shower, and I got dressed like a man preparing for his own funeral. The analogy was not so far off from the truth.
I poured myself one final drink and plunked out a single note on my piano. I couldn’t play more. It would be too painful to leave when I knew I wouldn’t have the gift of music where I was going.
There was one thing I needed to do. I couldn’t leave again without a word. I had to at least say goodbye.
My eyes closed and I sighed in defeat as I sent a text message to the detective, letting her know that I had returned to the penthouse, and requesting that she come speak with me, if she could. I almost hoped that she’d be tied up with her offspring, that I would have an excuse not to part with her when she was within my reach. Those hopes were dashed as I heard the sound of vibration indicating a response.
>> omw
I exhaled a long sigh. So be it.
I walked out to the balcony to take in the site of the city I’d come to call home, engraving it into memory as I waited.
I’d never been sad to hear her footsteps tracing behind me before.
“So, Charlie is back with Linda and Amenadiel. So…you know, it it’s over.”
I couldn’t turn, I didn’t want to speak, I didn’t want to do this…
“Isn’t it? Is it over?”
“I’d say yes, detective…but I’d be lying. And we both know I don’t do that.” The words pained me. The beginning of the end. It was time. I turned to face her as I began my goodbye.
“Tonight, we won, but we’ve just plugged one hole in a very flimsy boat. Now the demons know I have no intention of returning, they’ll continue to defy me. It’s only a matter of time before they come back to Earth, who knows where next….” The words were spilling out of my mouth, all of the words I had used to convince myself of what I must do next. Of my duty. I couldn’t tell if I was explaining to her, or reminding myself. This was harder than the bloody music.
“Or maybe they’ll just come back for Charlie, or…” it was hard to think about, harder to say, but it steeled my resolve. “..maybe you.”
The detective was particularly hard to read. She wouldn’t meet my gaze, and she was nodding, but also seemed preoccupied.
“I see, so, what are you saying?” She looked so uncomfortable, like she was trying to hold something back. What had she said earlier? She was afraid of losing me? I took a breath. If that was true, she wasn’t going to like this.
“I have to go back.” I said, watching her face, trying to gauge her reaction again.
“So for how long? Like a couple weeks or a month or?” She was asking. Was she going to make me say it? I couldn’t say it. I took a steadying breath.
“You were right, about the prophecy; we did get it wrong….it is about Hell coming to Earth, and we may have stopped it now, but for how long? I need to keep them contained. They must have a king.”
She had to understand, she had to agree. If she tried to stop me, I’m not sure I had the strength to go through with it.
“No.” She whispered, “No.” She said again. A sardonic chuckle fluttered through her lips as she shook her head. “see this…this is what I was meant, Lucifer when I sa-. You, you can’t leave me.”
’Please, Chloe. Please don’t make this harder than it is…’
“Listen, I’m so sorry that…the way I acted when I first saw your face, it was stupid and…” It seemed like she was floundering. Were those tears? I took a steadying breath, trying to steel myself. “Please.” She breathed, pleading. I felt my chest clench as my resolve nearly broke and tears welled behind my eyes.
“Please don’t go, I…” there it was again, she was fighting with herself, breaking off, looking away, down, and then meeting my eyes. “I love you.”
I forgot how to breathe. She loved me?
Loved me. Lucifer, the devil? It wasn’t possible, I must have heard her wrong.
“I love you! Please don’t leave!” She begged.
I found my breath. My heart restarted. Euphoria bled into my veins. This truly was the rapture. I choked out a laugh in a moment of exultation as I basked in this impossible triumph
“You see, we were wrong about something else in the prophecy.” I explained, not wanting to risk her thinking my laugh was at her confession. I took a step toward her and reached out my hand to caress her cheek, reveling in the feeling of it cupped in my palm as I wiped away a tear with my thumb “Eve was never my first love. It was you, Chloe. It always has been.” I confessed. At least she would know this truth before I left. I sighed as my eyes drifted down to her lips. Lips that I seemed to have permission to mingle with my own. I moved slowly, so that she would have ample time after seeing my intention to step away, if she so desired. She didn’t. Instead, she tilted her lips up to meet mine. My eyes fluttered closed, drinking her in. My love…this amazing person who could somehow come to love the devil.
It would be easier this time. I wasn’t being forced. I wasn’t there to punish myself, I would be there to protect this. Protect her.
I reached my other hand up and into her hair, holding her jaw as I felt her hands press against the sides of my face, shuddering into my kiss. Forcing myself to break this kiss would be the hardest thing I’ve ever done.
She let out a choked whimper as I pulled back from her. Shaking her head up at me.
“Don’t go..” She implored, tears streaming down her face.
“Goodbye.” I forced out. I had to go now, or I never would.
I took a step back out onto the balcony and unfurled my wings. Gleaming white feathers and I sighed in contentment that she would be able to see this side of me as well.
A look of awe came over her face as she took in this side of me, the angelic side, the man I wanted to be.
I reached out once more to cradle her face in my hand, relishing in the warmth of it.
“Goodbye.” I whispered. She closed her eyes against my touch and I took my leave of her, leaving her standing on my balcony as I returned to my Kingdom. Once again sitting at the throne high above the expansive realm of tortured souls below, for all the demons to see that their King had returned to claim dominion over them.
’Let’s do this.’